Trying to find ways to cut the costs of running a Formula One team, the FIA is now proposing a radical change to the regulations that will see the teams limited to using one engine per car for an entire Grand Prix weekend. The change, however, may not see an actual cost reduction and could likely bring with it various other problems. Will Gray analyses the new proposal with the help of experts inside the F1 circus

The FIA's suggestion that teams use one engine for the Saturday and Sunday of a Grand Prix weekend sounds an easy proposition, and the teams are all in favour of reducing costs in Formula One, but there are bound to be disagreements in the discussions, which will begin in a meeting with the FIA on March 19th.

There, this proposal, and one concerning the compulsory supply of engines to two teams, will be pounded out amongst team principals and the sport's top bosses. But despite the FIA's determination to introduce these regulations, there are some serious technical and sporting questions to be discussed before any proposal gets past the Formula One Commission.

There are, of course, plenty of merits in cutting the costs in Formula One, but the questions are, will the limitation of engines in such a way be the best solution to the problem, and will it actually be possible to achieve these changes in time for the start of the 2003 season?

A source at the FIA has told Atlas F1: "It is just as easy to make an engine to run 600km as it is to run 300km, you just run it at a different speed." But Nick Hayes, the director of Cosworth Engineering's Formula One programme, claims it is not that simple. He is yet to see the full details of the proposal but believes that, if the FIA are planning to introduce demands for longer-lasting engines, then it will be a "big job" for the engine manufacturers.

He would not reveal his views on the possible problems with such a rapid turn-around considering the changes, which would effectively force the manufacturers to strengthen the internals of their engines. But, talking to Atlas F1, he did suggest that the proposal needs some serious talking over before it is taken up.

"I haven't seen anything official but there has been a lot of discussion and there are lots of different scenarios," says Hayes. "If you just had to use it for qualifying and the race then it would not make that much difference to the design of the engine because it is just adding 12 laps to its life.

"But if you are looking at one change on the Friday night, then that is quite significant. You would have to extend the life quite a long way and that would mean having to do quite a bit of work.

"The most highly stressed components are limited on fatigue life and if nothing goes wrong then the engines will last 500km. If you try to go 1000km, then they would break. Even if you went to 600km then I think that 90 percent of our engines would fail."

The rate that a manufacturer goes through their engines means that there will currently be four units used up in a race weekend. There will be six supplied to the teams, because the spare car must always be in the same spec as the race cars, but they will generally use only four.

Normally, a team will run a used engine on the Friday, two fresh engines on Saturday - which are used through the day and are then taken to the next meeting and used for the race day, and another pair of fresh engines on Sunday, which are used for their whole life and then re-built. "There is never a rigid pattern," admits Hayes. "But if nothing goes wrong then we will use up to four engines over the Grand Prix weekend."

So would these engine limitations actually reduce the cost to the manufacturer, and therefore the cost of Formula One? Well, the FIA have done their sums. A source at the FIA believes that, if the changes were implemented, they would represent a significant saving. "We have accrued an estimate that the saving will be in the order of $200 million for the entire Formula One circus," said the source.

That is a significant reduction to spread amongst the 11 teams - an amount that could make the difference between survival and liquidation. "Even the top teams are in some difficulty," explains the FIA source. "You have the financial managers of the best teams pressing for reductions and the smaller teams could use the savings for other areas. Or it could save them from the same fate as Prost."

Although Hayes himself could not speculate on the value of saving the changes could introduce, he agreed with the point that there would be definite cost reductions because the regulations would have a knock-on effect on testing as well.

The teams, even the small teams, spend more track time testing than they do actually racing throughout a Grand Prix season. And although the changes would potentially be expensive to introduce, and would not significantly affect the levels of engine use at a Grand Prix, Hayes believes they would reduce costs - although he warns that the money saved would be spent elsewhere.

"It would save money overall," says Hayes, "because we are not just talking of the race meeting; we would not use so many engines in testing as well. I cannot tell you what the saving would be - but don't you spend all the money you get anyway? I support not wasting money, and to go racing at a smaller budget would be good. But if you have a certain budget to go racing, then you spend all that budget on going faster. It's as simple as that."

The suggestions that the introduction of the new regulations would see drivers losing significant grid positions if their engine blew up on a Saturday is clearly going to present serious implications to a team if they push their engine design to its limits.

But then again, you could say there are already limits on the engine - it must be able to make a full race distance - and that imposing slightly different limits would not reduce the level of engine technology significantly.

Hayes agrees. "It would not put a limitation on, it would just mean we would have to use that technology in a different way," he says. "We used to have engines that lasted longer, but competition tends to force shorter engine lives.

"There would be no change in architecture, and you would use similar technologies but just use different constraints. But it is still a big job. Doubling the life of an engine is not easy."